One More Big Reason for Adopting BDD: I have always considered Joel on Software as one of the best bloggers on software development that exists. I absolutely love his approach to software development and should he ever open an office west of the Mississippi I would be the first to send my resume! While doing research on another blog topic, I came across his famous blog on the Netscape rewrite. As happens from time to time, a universal truth crashes into our consciousness causing a virtual cascade of neural connections to fire, providing in the instant the “Aha!” moment. It came to me as I read the profound truth … Read More →

Why Project Focused Mentality is Killing Software Development: So, the other day I was listening to NPR in the car (like most people when they listen to talk radio). And the talk was about peace in the Middle East. One of the experts mentioned that, in his opinion, unless both sides owned the process, it was never going to come to fruition. This reminded me of Mark Fritz, international speaker on leadership in today’s organizations, and a compelling blog post he wrote about ownership. I thought this was interesting because there was an interwoven thought he drew upon throughout the post that I believe is applicable to Agile … Read More →

It’s Time for Companies to Add Agile to C-Level: The more companies, teams and C-level employees that I work with (and I have had the good fortune to work with many), the more I am convinced that implementing Agile can only go as far as the highest knowledgeable company officer who is supporting it. What we need are some Chief Agile Officers – CAOs. As an example, I had one consulting job to implement Agile within a team using Scrum framework after numerous internal attempts had failed. While I was able to move them closer to agility, it did not take long (as happens during an Agile transformation) to … Read More →

As an agile coach that has been fortunate to work at a good number of clients over the years, you get an opportunity to experience some interesting similarities among clients. Some are tragic, some are funny and some are just downright intriguing. I recently spoke with another agile coach and I discovered one particular pattern that I have decided to refer to as organizational antibodies. The talk in question was about the on boarding of coaches and things a coach tends to experience in the first few days on the ion. As we talked together and related our war stories … Read More →

One of the most enjoyable parts of my work and my life is delivering presentations or giving talks to outside groups. During one particular Q&A session I was asked a question along these lines – “If you had unlimited power in an organization, what would be the very first thing you would do to ensure agility?” My answer, “Oh that is easy. The very first thing I would do is get rid of the Project Management Office.” At which I unfortunately took a pause. The collective gasp from the crowd filled that void and the ensuing murmur drowned out my next … Read More →

The impetus for the gang of four was the desire of four agilists (coaches) to try to do the right things with regards to implementing agile and scrum – to do things that were generally acknowledged as good agile practices but things that were not necessarily politically palatable. In other words, we were something of a clandestine organization. Read More →

I’ve had the pleasure of working with hundreds of teams during my time as an Agile coach. I have loved and enjoyed working with each and every one of them. There are some though that are more memorable than others. Frequently it is those teams that I coach first in any organization – in psychology this would be referred to as the primacy effect. Sometimes it is because of the nature of the team. Recently I found myself waxing nostalgic for one very particular team that was my first team and also memorable because they were “rockstars”. Let me make … Read More →

Sometimes my passion provokes long stories, explanations or asides. Lately though when I speak to others about why agile works I eschew my sometimes verbose ways and reply with two words – “timely feedback”. Read More →

One of the contacts, who just happens to work at Sony, reached out to me this week and urged me to “blog to the world what really happened” and that the recent hack on Sony was not perpetrated by the North Korean government, but was one of a series of attacks that have been going on “for over two years”. According to my source, these recent attacks were part of a longer term “series of snooping breaches” that included “successful DDoS (denial of service) attacks during the World Cup based on Sony sponsorship of FIFA.” Read More →